Every question, in one place

For the Mekong Delta route, no. It is flat, the days are 40 to 55 km, and people who last rode a bike on holiday manage it comfortably.

For Mai Chau and Pu Luong, yes — there are two climbs of over 500 metres and you will want to have ridden 50 km in a day at least once before you come. The north-to-south route assumes you ride regularly.

Yes, and about one rider in eight does. We deduct the bike hire from the price, meet you at the airport with a van big enough for the bike box, and store the box while you ride.

Bring your own pedals, a spare hanger and a spare tyre. Our mechanics carry tools for standard groupsets, but hangers are model-specific and nothing in Hanoi will have yours.

You get in the van. This happens on most trips, usually on day two when the heat catches somebody out, and it is not treated as a failure by anyone.

The van carries a rack for four bikes, so a whole small group can stop riding at once if the weather turns.

Riding on Highway 1 is dangerous and we do not put groups on it except for short, unavoidable linking sections. Almost all of our riding is on provincial and district roads where the traffic is motorbikes, buffalo and school children.

Our guides ride at the front and back of the group, we do not ride after dark, and every rider wears a helmet and a high-visibility gilet. In eleven years we have had broken collarbones and no fatality, which is the honest answer rather than a claim of a perfect record.

Yes, and about a third of our private bookings are a combination. The usual pairs are Mai Chau plus Ha Giang in the north, or Hue to Hoi An plus the Mekong with a flight between them.

Allow a rest day between the two halves. Two back-to-back routes with no gap is the single most common way people end up not enjoying the second one.

On the Mekong route, from about age ten on their own bike, or any age on a tag-along or child seat, of which we have four.

On the mountain routes, from about fourteen and only if they already ride. The problem is not the climbing, which the van solves. It is the descending, which it does not.

Twelve riders is our normal maximum on a published route, with two guides above six riders.

For a corporate or charity ride we go to about 120 riders, but that is a different piece of work with a route survey, a police liaison and a three-month lead time. It is described on the about page.

Mai Chau and Pu Luong, plus two days in Hanoi either side. Four riding days is the point where a cycling holiday starts to feel like a trip rather than an excursion, and the north is where the scenery is.

If you are coming between May and August, take Hue to Hoi An instead. The north is wet and the central coast is not.

Because the 300 km between Ninh Binh and Hue, and the 350 km between Hoi An and the highlands, are almost entirely Highway 1: four lanes, no shoulder, sleeper coaches overtaking into oncoming traffic, and a container lorry every twenty seconds.

There is no quiet parallel road for most of it. Riding those sections is two and a half days of danger and noise in exchange for no scenery, so we spend USD 180 on a flight instead.

A 2023 or newer aluminium endurance road bike with 32 mm tyres and hydraulic discs, or a gravel bike with 40 mm tyres if you prefer. Sizes 48 to 60 cm.

The Pu Luong loop on day five is the only section where the gravel bike is genuinely better. Everything else is sealed road, and the vehicle carries a second wheelset if you want to change for that day.

If you can ride 80 km on rolling terrain, finish tired but not broken, and do it again two days later, you will enjoy this trip.

If you can ride 50 km comfortably but have never done consecutive long days, you will finish it using the van on days four and eleven, which is a perfectly normal outcome and not something anyone will remark on.

Between September and December on the central coast, yes, and we plan for it. The Hue to Hoi An section is the exposed part.

Our standing rule is that we move the trip rather than shorten it: if a storm is forecast to make landfall within 200 km, we fly the group south early and add a riding day in the highlands. You are not charged for the change, and you are not refunded for it either.

Yes. We keep six e-bikes, and on this route they are genuinely useful — day two becomes a pleasant day rather than a hard one.

The supplement is USD 22 per riding day. Battery range on our bikes is about 70 km in the hilliest setting, which covers every day here, and the van carries a spare battery and a charger.

Hard-packed clay and stone, rideable on 32 mm tyres in the dry, unpleasant on anything narrower. We put riders on 40 mm gravel tyres for this day by default.

After more than about 30 mm of rain in the preceding 24 hours, the guide will switch the loop for a sealed alternative. That decision is made in the morning, not the night before.

Ban Lac village is, and we do not pretend otherwise — there are souvenir looms and a car park. We stay in a house at the quiet end and we ride out of the village within twenty minutes each morning.

The valley floor beyond the village, and the whole of the Pu Luong side, is not touristy in any sense you would recognise. That is where three of the four riding days are.

Yes, and about one party in six does. We drive the extra 25 km and you start on the valley floor, which removes 11 km and 550 m of climbing from day one.

It costs nothing extra and it is the right call if your party has one strong rider and one nervous one. Tell us at booking rather than on the morning.

21 km, about 500 m of ascent, averaging 4.5 per cent with a few pitches at 8. Most riders take between 1 hour 20 and 2 hours 15.

It is long rather than steep. The two things that catch people out are the heat on the lower half, where there is no shade until km 8, and starting too fast because the first three kilometres are almost flat.

Not with the bike, no. Bicycles are not permitted in the Hai Van road tunnel, and the rail tunnel is a separate line with limited bike carriage.

If you do not want to ride it, you go over in the support vehicle with the bike on the rack, which takes 35 minutes and costs nothing. Two or three riders on most group departures do exactly that.

The 10 km through Da Nang is the least pleasant part of this route: six lanes, heavy motorbike traffic, and two large bridges.

We ride it in single file behind the guide, on a Sunday-morning line through the riverside road where possible. If a rider is nervous, the van takes them across the city and drops them on the beach road, and about one rider in ten takes that offer.

Yes, with a flight from Da Nang to Ho Chi Minh City, which is 75 minutes and runs eight times a day. It makes a nine-day trip with a rest day in between.

It is a good pairing because the two halves are completely different: one is coast and a climb, the other is flat water country. Combined price is about 8 per cent below the two separately.

For cycling, yes. The delta is uniform: what you see on day one you also see on day five, and riders who book five days usually tell us afterwards that three would have been right.

If you want more delta, add a night in Chau Doc near the Cambodian border, which is a genuinely different corner with the Tra Su melaleuca forest and Cham villages. That makes it five days and we price it separately.

From November to February, 28 to 32 degrees and manageable. In March, April and May, 34 to 37 with humidity above 70 per cent, which is the practical limit for most visitors.

In those months we start at 06:00, take a two-hour break at midday, and the vehicle carries iced water and towels. Several riders on every hot-season departure use the van for the last hour of day two.

Cai Rang is, at 06:00, and it is a wholesale market rather than a show — boats sell pineapples and pumpkins in quantity to other boats, with the produce tied to a pole so you can see it from a distance.

It is smaller than it was ten years ago because the roads and bridges have taken the freight. Cai Be, the other market on this route, is now mostly for visitors and we do not include it.

You get out, the guide fishes the bike out, and you change into the spare clothes in the van. It happens perhaps once every eight trips and no one has been hurt beyond pride.

The water in the irrigation channels is not clean. We carry antiseptic and we will insist on cleaning any graze properly, which is a bigger deal here than it would be at home.

No, not on this road, and not with us. The Quan Ba climb has trucks and blind hairpins in the first hour, and there is no forgiving section to learn on.

Go as a passenger. It is the same trip, it costs USD 70 more, and you will spend the Ma Pi Leng looking at the gorge instead of at the gravel on the apex.

Honda XR150 and Honda CB150 manuals, and Honda Winner semi-automatics, all bought new by us and replaced at about 30,000 km.

They are checked before every departure and a mechanic rides with groups over six. We do not use the 110cc Cub-type bikes that most Ha Giang hostels rent; they are underpowered for two people and a pack on these gradients.

The road surface is good on the northern loop and mixed on the southern return. The danger is other traffic, gravel washed onto bends, and riders going too fast downhill.

Serious accidents on the Ha Giang loop are common enough that the provincial hospital has a ward largely occupied by them, and almost all of them involve unguided riders on rented bikes, at speed, often at night or after drinking. We ride in daylight, in order, at a pace set by the slowest rider.

The far north sits close to the Chinese border and some sections have required permits in the past. Our guide handles whatever is currently required as part of the trip.

Bring your actual passport, not a photocopy. It is checked at guesthouses and occasionally on the road, and a copy is not accepted.

Yes, and it is the classic big northern loop: nine or ten days from Hanoi through the northwest to Sa Pa, across to Ha Giang, round the loop and back.

It is 1,900 km and it is a lot of riding. We only run it privately, from about USD 1,450 per rider, and we will ask for two references from previous tours.

On the O Quy Ho pass in December and January, between 2 and 8 degrees, with wind and often cloud. Moc Chau at 1,050 m sits around 8 to 14 in the same months.

Bring a windproof layer, real gloves and something for your neck. Vietnam is not uniformly hot and the northwest in winter catches people out every season.

Most riders on a six-day trip drop the bike at least once, almost always at walking pace on gravel or in a car park, and the bikes are built for it.

Damage up to about USD 120 we absorb. Above that we charge the actual repair cost with the invoice, and we do not take a deposit or hold your passport, which some operators still do and which you should refuse.

230 km, and it takes about eight hours because of the two passes and the surface, not because of the distance.

We split it into two days for any group that wants it, staying in Son La. It adds a night and about USD 90 per person, and roughly one group in four takes that option once they have seen the first two days.

Usually one of the six reasons in the section above, and most often the support vehicle and the bikes. Those two lines together are USD 115 to 165 a day, which on a four-day trip for four people is about USD 130 a head.

Send us the other itinerary. We will tell you which lines differ, and if their trip is genuinely the same and genuinely cheaper, we will tell you that too and you should take it.

The price tables already do — every route drops as the party grows, because the fixed costs divide further.

Above twelve riders we quote separately, because a second vehicle and a third guide come in and the per-head cost stops falling in a straight line.

We invoice in US dollars, which is how our suppliers price. You can pay in euros, pounds or Australian dollars by card at the day's rate, with the conversion done by the payment provider and shown to you before you confirm.

Bank transfers in currencies other than USD sometimes arrive short after intermediary bank fees. If that happens, we absorb the first USD 25 and ask you for the rest.

If a hotel is unavailable and we substitute a cheaper one, you get the difference back. This happens two or three times a season.

If a domestic flight goes up between quote and booking, we ask you for the difference with the booking reference attached, or we offer the night train instead. We do not absorb it and we do not hide it.

For October to April in the north, eight to twelve weeks. That is driven by hotels in Pu Luong and Ha Giang, where the good places have fifteen rooms, and by domestic flight prices.

Outside those months, three to four weeks is usually enough, and we have taken bookings with nine days' notice. What we cannot compress is the licence check for motorbike tours.

For seven days, yes, and without a deposit, on private trips outside the peak months. We will tell you honestly if somebody else is asking about the same dates.

In October, November, March and April we cannot hold hotels in Pu Luong or Meo Vac without a deposit, because the suppliers will not hold them for us.

Tell the guide, whose number you will have. We will move the fitting to the morning of day one and drive you forward to meet the group at lunch, which works on every route except the Ha Giang loop.

The cost of the extra transfer is ours if the delay is under six hours, and shared if it is longer. We would rather do that than have you ride tired on the first day.

Yes, on every route, and roughly one rider in six on our group departures is travelling alone.

There is a single room supplement because hotels charge per room, but we will try to match you with another solo rider of the same sex first, which removes it entirely. On homestay nights there is no supplement because there are no rooms.

Pu Luong and Mai Chau, on a bicycle, between September and November. Dense lane network, real climbing, close enough to Hanoi that you lose no days travelling, and the terraces are why people photograph Vietnam.

If you are on a motorbike, Ha Giang without hesitation, and accept the two long transfers at each end.

Between Mai Chau and the northwest, yes, and our six-day motorbike loop does exactly that.

From the north to central Vietnam, no, not sensibly. It is 700 km of Highway 1 with no quiet parallel road for most of it. Fly or take the train, which is what we do.

For gold: late September to mid-October in Pu Luong and Mu Cang Chai, with about a two-week window that moves each year with the planting.

For water mirrors: mid-May to mid-June, when the terraces are flooded and not yet grown in. Fewer visitors, hotter riding, and the light in the early morning is better than in autumn.

In December, January and February, yes, and visitors consistently underestimate it. Hanoi sits at 13 to 18 degrees, Pu Luong at 9 to 15, and the high passes in the northwest have been below 3.

It is a damp cold with no heating in most buildings, which makes it feel colder than the number. Bring a windproof layer and long fingers.

Legally, you need a licence Vietnam recognises either way, and most visitors' permits are not recognised. That is the first question, not the second.

Beyond the law: the loop is not hard to navigate and plenty of people ride it alone. What a guide changes is what happens when something goes wrong — a breakdown at 1,400 m, a landslide, a hospital that speaks no English. We are not neutral on this, but that is the honest shape of the trade-off.

For riding, by a distance. Sa Pa's valley is beautiful and the town has been overwhelmed by hotel construction; Ha Giang has more road, better road, and nothing on the scale of the Sa Pa development.

For trekking, the answer flips. Sa Pa and Mu Cang Chai have the better walking and the better village homestay network.

Dong Van in January runs 5 to 14 degrees, and the passes have had frost. It is damp and there is no heating.

It is also the clearest, emptiest and cheapest time to be there, and the photographs are better than in the autumn haze. Bring a windproof layer, real gloves and a buff, and it is an excellent month.

Yes. Dong Van's Sunday market and Meo Vac's Sunday livestock market are the two biggest, and they are working markets rather than displays — the livestock market in particular is loud, muddy and completely uninterested in visitors.

Both start before 06:00 and are finished by 10:00. Building your loop so that you are in the right town on Saturday night is worth more than any single viewpoint.

Yes, clearly, and not because it is more beautiful — Sa Pa's valley probably is. It is because the lane network is denser and the roads have almost no traffic.

Sa Pa's riding is on two or three main roads shared with buses and construction lorries. Pu Luong's is on fifty kilometres of lanes that no car can enter.

On the valley floors, yes, comfortably. Mai Chau's floor is flat and Pu Luong has a low loop of about 25 km.

The connecting rides between the valleys are not beginner riding: 1,150 m of climbing in 62 km, on a lane that touches 14 per cent in short pitches. That is what the support vehicle is for, and using it is normal.

A single long room on the upper floor of a wooden house, with mattresses, pillows and mosquito nets laid out in a row, usually for eight to sixteen people. Bathrooms are downstairs and shared. It is clean and it is not private.

Dinner is cooked by the family and eaten together on the floor, and rice wine will be offered. If you would rather have a private room with a bathroom, most homestays now have two or three, and we book those when you ask.

Leeches, yes, in the wet season on the forest paths in the reserve — not on the roads and lanes where you will be riding. Long socks solve it.

Snakes exist and you will almost certainly not see one. In eleven seasons our guides have had two encounters worth reporting, both with the snake leaving faster than the rider.

It is worth it for the lanes rather than the river. Riding a dyke top at walking-pace-plus with houses on either side and nothing motorised anywhere near you is the specific thing this region offers.

If your interest is the river itself, two days is plenty, and a boat does it better than a bicycle.

Cai Rang, at Can Tho, arriving before 06:15. It is the largest wholesale market left and it is genuinely trading rather than performing.

Phong Dien, 20 km further out, is smaller and quieter and worth it if you have a second morning. Cai Be we skip.

Yes. There is a river border crossing at Vinh Xuong, north of Chau Doc, with boats through to Phnom Penh in about five hours.

Bikes travel on the boat. It is a good way to end a Vietnam trip and start a Cambodian one, and we can arrange the Vietnamese half of it up to the border.

Present at dusk and dawn near standing water, and a real nuisance at riverside homestays without nets — most now have them.

Dengue is present in the delta and there is no vaccine you will have had. Repellent with DEET, long sleeves at dusk and a net at night are the sensible precautions, and this is worth a conversation with a travel clinic before you come.

October, in the north, on either kind of bike. Dry, clear, 18 to 27 degrees, and the terraces are freshly cut.

It is also the busiest month and the most expensive, and Ha Giang in October has several hundred motorbikes a day on the loop. March is 90 per cent as good and much quieter.

Yes, and in the south it barely affects a trip that starts early. Rain in the delta and the highlands arrives in the afternoon.

In the northern mountains the answer is different, and it is not about comfort. Landslides close roads that have no alternative. We run reduced departures in July and August and we tell people to come at a different time.

Accommodation in the north runs 10 to 15 per cent higher from October to April, and considerably more in the harvest fortnight and at Tet.

Our guiding, vehicle and bike costs do not change with the season, so the total difference on a four-day trip is usually USD 40 to 70 per person.

Ask us. We keep the previous five years of daily temperature and rainfall for the six places we operate in, and we will send you the actual figures for your fortnight rather than a seasonal average.

Averages hide the thing that matters, which is the number of days with over 20 mm of rain. That is what stops a ride, not the monthly total.

Yes. We deduct the hire cost, meet you with a van big enough for the box, and store the box while you ride. About one rider in eight does this.

Bring a spare derailleur hanger — they are model-specific and nothing in Hanoi will have yours — plus a spare tyre. Our mechanics carry tools for Shimano and SRAM road and mountain groupsets.

40 mm gravel tyres by default on any day with unsealed sections, which means the Pu Luong loop and parts of the delta.

If you are on a road bike for the rest of the trip, the van carries a second wheelset with the wider tyres and we change it in the morning, which takes about four minutes a bike.

Six of them, and mixed-ability parties are exactly what they are for. A rider on an e-bike can stay with a much stronger group on a 1,000 m climbing day without anybody slowing down or waiting.

The supplement is USD 22 a riding day. Range is about 70 km in the hilliest setting, which covers every day we run, and the van carries a spare battery.

Operator liability cover as required by Vietnamese law, plus the compulsory vehicle and motorcycle third-party cover. That is not personal travel insurance and it will not pay your medical bill.

You must have your own policy, and it must name cycling, or motorcycling at the engine size you will ride. A surprising number of standard policies exclude both. We ask for the policy number and the emergency line two weeks before you arrive so the guide has it in his pocket rather than in an inbox.

Vietnamese, registered in Hanoi, with a Vietnamese international tour operator licence. Everyone on the payroll is Vietnamese except two seasonal guides.

That matters practically: we hold the licences and permits ourselves rather than renting a local partner's, which is what a foreign-owned operator has to do here, and it is why we can commit to a departure without a third party's agreement.

Yes, up to about 120 riders, and the section above sets out what the lead times and the structure look like.

The first conversation is always about the date and the number, because those two decide whether the permits are possible. Bring them to the first email and we will tell you within a day whether it can be done.

Frequently, and it is some of our favourite work — a club that already rides together needs much less managing than a group of strangers.

For clubs we will usually build a route rather than sell one of the six, because clubs tend to want more climbing and fewer stops than a standard departure. Send us your club's typical Sunday ride and we will design from that.

Every guide carries a first aid kit and a trauma card with the nearest hospital, its distance and its capability written on it for each day of the route. The van is the ambulance in most of the places we ride, because a real one is an hour away.

We call your insurer's emergency line, not ours, and we stay with you. In eleven seasons we have had broken collarbones, one broken wrist and a concussion, and no fatality. That is the honest record rather than a safety claim.

Yes, and several riders a month do. The Hanoi office has the workshop attached and you can see the fleet, the spares and the vehicles.

Call or message first so somebody is there who can talk to you properly. Turning up unannounced gets you a look at the bikes and not much else.

The emergency line, yes, at any hour, and it is answered by a duty guide rather than a service.

The planning line is 08:30 to 18:00 Vietnam time, Monday to Saturday. If you are in Europe or the Americas, email overnight and there will be a reply when you wake up.

Hanoi for everything. The Ho Chi Minh City office handles logistics for the southern routes and does not do trip planning.

If you are already in Vietnam and in the south, the southern number will find somebody who can help with anything urgent.

Yes, on net rates, for agents who have ridden with us or who send us a detailed brief. Write to the enquiries address with your agency details.

We do not pay commission to booking sites or to guesthouses that steer walk-ins, which is why you will not be recommended to us by a hostel in Hanoi.

For the Mekong Delta route, no. It is flat, the days are 40 to 55 km, and people who last rode a bike on holiday manage it comfortably.

For Mai Chau and Pu Luong, yes — there are two climbs of over 500 metres and you will want to have ridden 50 km in a day at least once before you come. The north-to-south route assumes you ride regularly.

Yes, and about one rider in eight does. We deduct the bike hire from the price, meet you at the airport with a van big enough for the bike box, and store the box while you ride.

Bring your own pedals, a spare hanger and a spare tyre. Our mechanics carry tools for standard groupsets, but hangers are model-specific and nothing in Hanoi will have yours.

You get in the van. This happens on most trips, usually on day two when the heat catches somebody out, and it is not treated as a failure by anyone.

The van carries a rack for four bikes, so a whole small group can stop riding at once if the weather turns.

Riding on Highway 1 is dangerous and we do not put groups on it except for short, unavoidable linking sections. Almost all of our riding is on provincial and district roads where the traffic is motorbikes, buffalo and school children.

Our guides ride at the front and back of the group, we do not ride after dark, and every rider wears a helmet and a high-visibility gilet. In eleven years we have had broken collarbones and no fatality, which is the honest answer rather than a claim of a perfect record.

Yes, and about a third of our private bookings are a combination. The usual pairs are Mai Chau plus Ha Giang in the north, or Hue to Hoi An plus the Mekong with a flight between them.

Allow a rest day between the two halves. Two back-to-back routes with no gap is the single most common way people end up not enjoying the second one.

On the Mekong route, from about age ten on their own bike, or any age on a tag-along or child seat, of which we have four.

On the mountain routes, from about fourteen and only if they already ride. The problem is not the climbing, which the van solves. It is the descending, which it does not.

Twelve riders is our normal maximum on a published route, with two guides above six riders.

For a corporate or charity ride we go to about 120 riders, but that is a different piece of work with a route survey, a police liaison and a three-month lead time. It is described on the about page.

Mai Chau and Pu Luong, plus two days in Hanoi either side. Four riding days is the point where a cycling holiday starts to feel like a trip rather than an excursion, and the north is where the scenery is.

If you are coming between May and August, take Hue to Hoi An instead. The north is wet and the central coast is not.